Fiddling While Treasury Burns – by Vasko Kohlmayer

The spend junkies who inhabit the United States Congress are once again trying to pull a fast one on the American people. Driven by an overpowering urge to feed their insatiable habit, they are plotting to raise the national debt ceiling by an unprecedented amount. Reports Politico:

“In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections.”

One must question Politico’s choice of terms in describing the strategy as “bold.” Insidious would be a more fitting adjective.

Knowing that the national debt will continue skyrocket, our representatives want to avoid voting for another increase before next year’s elections. Such a vote could possibly make the debt a subject of discussion, which is something they wish to avoid at all costs. Having done their best to spend us into oblivion, their bashfulness is understandable. But judging by their maneuvering, they obviously don’t think their work is done.

The proposed increase should give us pause, because it reveals the extent to which our congressmen plan to waste our money in the months to come. In their own estimation, they will need $1.8 trillion to get them through the period between the end of December and the next election. This amount is $400 billion above the $1.4 trillion deficit that the government posted in fiscal 2009. In other words, Congressional democrats estimate that nearly 30 percent more will be spent in the next 10 months than was expended during the whole of the record-breaking 2009.

“We’ve incurred this debt. We have to pay our bills,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Hoyer’s statement is utterly disingenuous. If we paid our bills we would not have to raise the debt ceiling. The fact is that we do not pay our bills. We simply borrow when payments come due. And when we have to pay interest on our debt, we borrow for that too.

We have been told that the deficit spending of fiscal 2009 was a one off event necessitated by the crisis. It was claimed that the unprecedented outlays were necessary to halt our descent into the abyss. The astronomical deficit of 2009 was supposed to be an exception. Once the storm blew over, we were supposed to return to a more restrained mode of conducting our financial affairs.

Judging by their actions, Congressional Democrats have no intention of doing that. Quite to the contrary, they plan to spend even more than they did last year. This poses a serious problem as our government is out of money, burdened with financial obligations it cannot conceivably meet. And yet our politicians plan to add to our debt in unprecedented measure. Looking at all this one almost gets the impression that our political establishment is in the grip of incurable spending madness.

Speaking of madness, President Obama said in his recent speech at the Brookings Institution that we “had to spend our way out of this recession.”

If that were only so. When unemployment was approaching 6 percent under Bush, the media and democrats were bemoaning the bitter recession we were in. But today’s double digit percent unemployment apparently means that the recession is over.

The truth is that we have not spent ourselves out of anything. Rather, we have spent ourselves into a hole. There is precious little to show for the trillions that have been burned. Earlier this year, the president’s advisors repeatedly assured us that with the stimulus unemployment would not exceed 8.5 percent. Today it is at 10 percent amidst a moribund economy. And even though we did not get the promised employment numbers, we got something else instead – a national debt worth more than $12 trillion. But even that is not enough for Washington’s voracious money appetite as evidenced by the efforts of our legislators to raise the debt ceiling.

But the president appears to be oblivious to all this. In addition to claiming that we have spent ourselves out of the recession he is also boasting that his administration has started “to make the hard choices necessary to get our country on a more stable fiscal footing in the long run.”

What “hard choices”? Obama’s every major proposal would dramatically add both to the deficit and to the national debt. Not in the least perturbed by this, the president continues to portray himself as a paragon of fiscal prudence. This is what he claimed in his Brookings speech:

“[W]e’re taking responsibility for every dollar we spend… We’ve combed the budget, cutting waste and excess wherever we could. I’m still committed to halving the deficit we inherited by the end of my first term… We have begun to not only change policies but also to change the culture in Washington.”

This is the stuff of alternative reality: The most fiscally profligate president in memory boasting about his restraint and thriftiness. He has apparently not noticed that our fiscal house is on fire. It is an alarming sight indeed to watch an American president fiddle while Treasury burns.

That's just the debt they intend to add, after they spend every dime they take in. That's around 4.5 TIMES what they actually spent on the '08 bailout, and comes after they spend (their debate has already moved from what they are going to do with it to how they are going to spend it) almost all of the $300+ billion still left over from that. Unlike that bailout money, their new spending, like the auto bailout money, will never be paid back to the treasury.

They complain about the mess they 'inherited' (as if they didn't campaign for their positions), but it's nothing to the mess they're making. A broke debtor America can't interfere much with the world revolution they still believe in, should the dp lose power again.

josephwiess

Congress should have to balance it's budget, without raising new taxes. The only way to do this, is to stop spending, and even kill some stupid programs. If I have to balance my budget, so should they.

msgtgarrison

George Orwell would be disappointed to learn his predictions were only off by 26 years. Expect the 2010 stimulas money to be spent on Big Screen Televisions in every town square so that Obama can directly assure the people that Debt is Prosperity, War is Peace, Government Spending is Frugal, Lies are Truth, Government Control is Liberty.

Len Powder

Individuals, businesses and families that take on excessive debt experience the unpleasant consequences for many years. In many cases declaring personal or business bankruptcy provides the only 'remedy'. But the 'remedy' destroys their credit worthiness and forces them to live on their earnings, perhaps never being able to obtain credit again. What makes anyone think that the government can be fiscally irresponsible and not suffer, sooner or later, the same consequences? Obama and his Obamacrats are living in a world of complete delusion, bordering on insanity. Destroying this nation financially and economically seems beyond their ability to comprehend. And if they succeed in producing the collapse, they will blame GW Bush and the 'fat cat' Wall Street bankers. These morons are not operating with a full deck. We may be witnessing the results, very soon, of what happens when lunatics are placed in charge of this country. Just imagine an entire nation having its fabric and security destroyed. In the end people will ask 'How did this happen to us?' The answer is that we did it to ourselves by embracing ignorance and accepting lies.

bs61

It's definitely not ignorance or insanity, they're marxist and their goal is to destroy are country with our fat cat capitalists. None of their policies made any sense until I accepted that!

Len Powder

For me calling someone a Marxist is equivalent with calling them ignorant and insane. Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Islamism, etc., are insane ideologies based on fantasies but implemented by totalitarianism. But what's in a name? The point is they are dangerous and destructive and must be stopped!

pklawitter

"Just imagine an entire nation having its fabric and security destroyed." Len, we don't have to imagine it. We have historical archives of what it looked like in World War II Germany.

Len Powder

Actually I was thinking more of the Weimar Republic before Hitler took over the reigns-paying 1 million marks for a loaf of bread. Using money to light the stove.